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The alternative rock movement of the ’90s produced some of the greatest anthems in heavy music history – and the second single from Stone Temple Pilots’ debut album sits among the very finest.
The music to Plush was written by bassist Robert DeLeo, with singer Scott Weiland and drummer Eric Kretz handling the lyrics, which even the members themselves would admit live on the more ambiguous side of songcraft.
Seven years after its release, in a performance and interview for an episode of VH1 Storytellers, Weiland elaborated on how he came up with the words to the song, explaining how they were inspired by a true story.
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“A girl was kidnapped and then later found tragically murdered back in the early part of the ’90s,” he recounted. “So it gave me fuel to write the words to this song. However, this song is not about that, really. It’s sort of a metaphor for a lost, obsessive relationship.”
In a 2017 interview with Rolling Stone, Kretz revealed how the song was written at the “Oakwood Apartments, this condominium short-term hotel, where we were for about a month” and the pair completed the lyrics while “drinking beer and sitting in the hot tub”.
He also revealed how it was Weiland who came up with the track name, which was also being thrown around as a title for the album early on. In their eyes, it was “a very intriguing kind of word”.
In the same interview Kretz explained how the recurring line “When the dogs do find her” was written because of the heightened sense of smell that’s typical for the canine species, as well as all of the members carrying a fondness for man’s best friend.
He did, however, admit that the reference was “kind of an odd thing” but it “made sense at the time”, and also explained how the line “Where ya going with the mask I found?” had been inspired by the Mexico’s Dias De Los Muertos festival, also known as The Day Of The Dead.
The music was recorded at Rumbo Recorders studio in Los Angeles in May 1992.
“Everything on that record was done live,” Kretz once explained. “The guitar track on Plush, that’s a live track playing with Eric, Robert and I. We were all right in front of one another. It was just us going for it.”
The opening guitar riff played by guitarist Dean DeLeo is built off an open position G chord, with the notes on the B-string descending chromatically and then climbing back up just before the riff repeats itself.
The idea was born out of his brother Robert’s love for vintage Americana, jazz and country music, which was blended into the band’s sound to make their take on heavy rock “a little more interesting”.
“That beginning riff is really just ragtime,” Robert told this writer in 2022. “Like an old piano or guitar thing from that old school era.”
He continued: “Then I just ended it with a little exercise I used for country riffs, where it kinda climbs its way back to the beginning. After that, I put the bass riffs in and it all came together.”
For the recordings, Robert used a blue G&L L2000 Jazz bass going into an Ampeg SVT amp. Dean mainly stuck with his 1978 Gibson Les Paul Standard going into a wet/dry/wet rig – a Demeter TGP-3 preamp through a VHT Classic Stereo power amp running into two 4×12 cabinets, along with a Vox AC30 in the middle.
“That Vox is set very clean and chimey,” he once told this writer in 2021. “That’s what you hear when I back off the volume on my guitar… it’s really clear, even with a Les Paul.”
He added: “I use James Demeter’s preamp to get make sure my clean, dirty and loud blast-off lead tones are all sounding nice.”
The modulation heard on Dean’s guitars came from a Rocktron Intelliverb, though for the last few decades he’s been using Boss pedals like the CE-1 and CE-2W on stage to create a chorusing effect that can “emulate a Leslie sound”.
Plush ended up topping the US Billboard Album Rock Tracks on its year of release and would also scoop the award for Best Hard Rock Performance category at the 1994 Grammys, standing as the only Grammy win of their career to date.
The song’s music video, directed by Josh Taft, ended up receiving heavy rotation on MTV and won the 1993 MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist.
The members of Stone Temple Pilots had no idea, however, that the track would become such a big hit – at least not to the extent it did. When their label Atlantic Records suggested releasing Plush as the lead single, the band refused, opting for Sex Type Thing instead. They also chose to “bury” the track deep into the album’s second half.
“We did that intentionally,” Robert DeLeo told Rolling Stone in 2017. “We didn’t want to be that band that had a huge hit and then it was like, ‘What next?’ We wanted to have a career.”
He added: “We didn’t want to be the kind of band that came out with a big song and then went away. But yeah, when that song came out, it changed everything.”
